Borkowski were challenged to grow Download Festival beyond a cult-favourite rock specialist into a mainstream mainstay of the festival circuit, both through engaging ideas to inspire and excite the loyal core fan base, and by securing stand-out pieces more general national and consumer media - making rock and metal less “scary” to the average festivalgoer.
Story
In a wide-ranging and ambitious campaign, we worked hard to increase collaboration opportunities and artist access for rock and metal specialist outlets, creating a community atmosphere, and persuaded big names to engage with mainstream publications and journalists who covered rock stars positively from an outside perspective.
We also engaged independent music outlets which only sporadically cover hard rock and metal and gave them access to artists who best appealed to crossover audiences, gaining enhanced positive coverage in outlets including NME, Buzzfeed, DIY, Noisey & Clash, also creating a ‘Rock Chick’ Easter message video which gained global media coverage and over 1million views across channels.
Overarching all of this, we projected Download as a rounded festival experience; exploiting aspects of rock and alternative culture – encompassing extreme sports, tattoos, wrestling, rock photography, horror, sci-fi, fantasy and pop art – to gain media coverage in sectors beyond the music press which helped evolve Download’s media profile drastically.